• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 13, 2005

Arbitron, which has been recruiting a panel for a decisive market trial of its portable people meter audience measurement system in Houston, Tuesday said it reached its sample goal of 2,100 consumers, and has begun evaluating data on TV viewing and radio listening in the market. Although Arbitron has not yet made the data public, it said it plans to begin sharing “station-level” findings – including new insights on how people use both TV and radio both in and outside the home – in September.

Arbitron said it also is demonstrating two new technical innovations to its PPM system in Houston: one that would make it possible to automatically distinguish in-home and out-of-home radio and television use; and another that enables the PPM to automatically detect and measure time-shifted viewing and listening done with digital video recorders (DVRs), digital audio recorders (DARs) as well as traditional taping systems such as VCRs.

Arbitron said it would begin releasing Houston data monthly in September and through the Winter of 2006, when the test ends and Arbitron is expected to make a decision on whether to deploy the system as a commercial media ratings service.

Arbitron’s success in panel recruitment is noteworthy, because it achieved its goals on schedule and without the help of erstwhile partner Nielsen Media Research, which retains an option on a commercial ratings service utilizing the PPM technology, and has been financially supporting its R&D. Nielsen, however, refused to help with the sample recruitment of a PPM panel in Houston, causing Arbitron to go its own way. In recent months, Arbitron has indicated its intent to develop a radio-only version of the PPM should Nielsen take a pass at the TV ratings portion of the service and if it can convince the radio industry to foot the bill.

Recently, and presumably in preparation for those negotiations, one of Arbitron’s biggest radio clients, Clear Channel Communications, issued a request for proposal for new electronic audience measurement systems for radio, which some observers see as a means of gaining some leverage with Arbitron.

Arbitron, meanwhile, is proving its pretty good at building a PPM sample. While it’s still unclear how well the respondents with interact with their PPMs, or what the impact of those measurements will be on TV and radio ratings in the market, the test panel matches or exceeds population estimates for most of the key demographics in the market, with the exception of Hispanic households where Spanish is the dominant language (see data below).

Houston DMA® Total Installed Persons 6+ as of June 2005 Index = (installed %/
universe %) x 100

*Source for language universe estimates: Nielsen Media Research